LAST Update from the Road

Greetings all.

We're safely tucking into the Regal Airport Hotel in HK for the night.

We fly out homeward-bound tomorrow morning. Reveille is at 0500.
Kyle was settling into his crib for the night and Lisa and I just finished pre-packing our 4 suitcases. (If you're following along with the home game, that 100% more than we started with!!)

Anyway, lots to report since my last update. Lisa was kind enough to write up some bullet points for me to go by, so since it's late and I'm tired, I'll just follow alobg with them, as long as no one objects. I didn't hear any objections so here we go...

Yesterday we hit HK Disneyland - and how! We were there form 9:30 AM to 6:15 PM. It was a reasonable taxi ride from our hotel, so we cabbed it. We are very proud to report that Kyle made it through the day with FLYING COLORS! No meltdowns and he seemed to be having fun all day long. We got some great photos which I hope to post shortly. The park has only been open 1 year and we're essentially in the off season, so we had the run of the place. We had ZERO wait on most rides, and suffered our longest wait on the Jungle River Cruise - an excrutiating 10 minutes! There were very few westerners in the Park and even fewer Americans (seemed like lots of Brits & Aussies again.)

Once again the boy was the star of the show, getting compliments at every turn. He rode the kids Pooh ride 3x and seemed to enjoy it (and get it) more each time. We also did Buzz Lightyear 2x (To all of our neices and nephews: Aunt Lisa wanted to ride it again, so she could try to beat Uncle Charlie, sine he smoked her good the first time. But, it made no difference, she got whooped even worse the 2nd time!!!!), Flying Dumbo 3x, The Orbitron 2x, and the Carousel. To give Kyle a break, we saw the Lion KIng Show at around nap time. True to form Kyle stayed awake for all but the last 5 minutes and the Finale (the loudest and most exciting parts). He also got tons of stickers - too many to mention. We was great with all of the characters - this was a bit curious to us, given his anxiety on Gotcha Day. But he did not seem afraid at all, nor did he shy away from any of them, or cringe when then reached out to touch him. We got a lot of great photos of these, too.

Kyle needed some shade from the sun, since it was such a perfect day (warm and comfortable for January). So we got him a little Tigger hat - he looked just super in it - when he left it on!!! Again, got some pictures.

The night before we went to Disney, Kyle and I had a "boys night out". We had a couple of beers, got foot massages and went to a few clubs... - just kidding!!! I did take him (solo) to a Dan Ryan's Steakhouse, where I dined on real meat for the first time in a couple of weeks while Kyle dined on Mixed Vegtebles, crakers, goldfish and of course, Cheerios. Lisa needed the rest to get ready for Disneyland. The meal was so good that I was able to talk Lisa into going there last night, too.

Kyle's getting more engaged in his surroundings, and has taken to entertaining people he sees - he waves, and shakes his head "No" (I think he thinks it means "Yes" so we've got some work to do here...).

Today we went to the other side of HKI (HK Island), and visited Stanley Market. We took a ferry across the harbor and caught the "Number 6" bus (Double-Decker) for the 40 minute ride to the market. Aunt Lisa got a little queasy because the ride was a bit of a thrill, with lots of steep drop-offs on the side of the road. There was never any danger, but we almost had to have Aunt Lisa hand surgically removed from the safety hand grip! Kyle shopped all day with us like a champ. We visited a Buddhist Temple and lit some incense and said a few prayers for our safe passage home. We passed Repulse Bay on the way to Stanlley and the views were breathtaking - they reminded us somewhat of Hawaii.

Kyle is in his last Hotel Room for a while. We had a nice dinner here at the hotel. We're really looking forward to coming home and settling our family into the simple routines of being a family. We're as ready as we can be for the big trip back home to the USA and are really fortunate to be able to have business class seats.

I know that everyone is excited to finally meet Kyle. But I don't think you're as excited as we are to introduce him to you.

It's really hard to believe that our journey has come to an end - it's been the experience of a lifetime and we've been lucky to have all of you along with us for the ride.

Thanks for reading our posts, we hope they've given you a flavor for what we've been doing and where we've been.

That's it for now. I'll post pictures in a moment.

Good night.

(To Grandmom and Pop-Pop Lockhead, we'll call probably call you from Detroit, when we know more about our arrival details - don't forget to put in the car seat!!!)

C